Vivek Agnihotri starts working on film on Lal Bahadur Shastri

Mumbai, Oct 2 (IANS) Filmmaker Vivek Agnihotri has started pre-production and casting for his next project dedicated to former Prime Minister of India, Lal Bahadur Shastri.

The filmmaker on Monday took to Twitter to share the update about the project, and said that he is happy to start the film’s journey on Shastri’s 113th birth anniversary.

“On this day when India’s most honest, successful and loved leader, Shri Lalbahadur Shashtri was born, we begin the pre-production and casting of our film on his mysterious death in Tashkent,” Agnihotri posted.

In January this year, Agnihotri had announced the project on Twitter via a post: “This is my next film dedicated to Shri Lal Bahadur Shastri… Please support and contribute ideas. #WhoKilledShashtriji.

“Death/assassination, questions must be answered. Contribute ideas. This will be first crowdsourcing of ideas for a film.”

Agnihotri, whose “Buddha in a Traffic Jam” found critical acclaim, also shared a poster, which read: “I think it is our democratic right to know if our 2nd Prime Minister Shri Lal Bahadur Shastriji died a natural death, or, as alleged, was it an assassination? Why the cover-up?”

Shastri was born to Sharada Prasad and Ramdulari Devi in Uttar Pradesh’s Varanasi on October 2, 1904. On January 11, 1966, he took his last breath in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, the day after signing the Tashkent Declaration, reportedly due to cardiac arrest. He was the first person to be posthumously awarded the Bharat Ratna, India’s highest civilian award.